roughly 100 military/police plus 50 support/maintenance personnel
Description and notes:
The only attempt at government in the ruins of Racine, Fort Purgatory (officially, the Racine Safety Compound) is located in what was once the city's downtown area and comprises the former Safety Building (where the main police station and central fire department were once located), the Racine County Courthouse, and the area between them, which has been enclosed in a ramshackle barricade composed of old vehicle hulks, chunks of masonry form collapsed buildings, and any other large, heavy junk that could be piled up. A few sections of the outer wall are a tall wooden stockade, and a few gaps have been filled in with sandbags. The courthouse is the tallest building remaining in the city, and its upper floors are used as as observation point and/or sniper's nest. The lower levels and most of the Safety Building have been converted to barracks and storage areas for food, supplies, and munitions. Some of the pavement inside the barricade has been broken up to make soil available for a small potato field; supply convoys into the city need to be heavily armed and tend to be few and far between.
The fort's main purpose is to keep an eye on the savage locals, who are now little more than warring tribes. It is feared that, if united, they could pose a threat to the security of Milwaukee (their weapons are crude, but they are extremely aggressive). The fort also provides shelter from the natives for normal, civilized people passing through the area; this is the most likely reason for characters to have contact with the fort. Some have questioned both the usefulness and the cost of maintaining a government presence here, but official Waltzer doctrine is that withdrawing from the area would be "a surrender to the forces of barbarism". Small-scale raids by the locals are common, and cause a small but steady trickle of casualties. The only available water is piped in from Lake Michigan and, even boiled, is a frequent cause of illness. The local sewer system is unreliable, so the fort often smells strongly of human waste, particularly during summer. The only electrical power comes from a small generator run (inefficiently) on wood alcohol, and is used to power the single searchlight mounted on the courthouse; the rest of the facility relies on candlelight or torches.
Service at Fort Purgatory is not considered desirable duty. Officers and men are often assigned here for offending a superior or being suspected of disloyalty. Morale among the garrison is low, tension extremely high; besides the squalid conditions and frequent raids, every man in the fort is aware that even a few of the local tribes acting in unison could overwhelm their perimeter and that the nearest reinforcements are too far away to offer any real assistance. The only thing preventing mutiny or mass desertion is fear of what the locals will do if they catch the troops in the open. Lone deserters usually reappear days later, tossed over the walls a piece at a time.
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The fort's main purpose is to keep an eye on the savage locals, who are now little more than warring tribes. It is feared that, if united, they could pose a threat to the security of Milwaukee (their weapons are crude, but they are extremely aggressive). The fort also provides shelter from the natives for normal, civilized people passing through the area; this is the most likely reason for characters to have contact with the fort. Some have questioned both the usefulness and the cost of maintaining a government presence here, but official Waltzer doctrine is that withdrawing from the area would be "a surrender to the forces of barbarism". Small-scale raids by the locals are common, and cause a small but steady trickle of casualties. The only available water is piped in from Lake Michigan and, even boiled, is a frequent cause of illness. The local sewer system is unreliable, so the fort often smells strongly of human waste, particularly during summer. The only electrical power comes from a small generator run (inefficiently) on wood alcohol, and is used to power the single searchlight mounted on the courthouse; the rest of the facility relies on candlelight or torches.
Service at Fort Purgatory is not considered desirable duty. Officers and men are often assigned here for offending a superior or being suspected of disloyalty. Morale among the garrison is low, tension extremely high; besides the squalid conditions and frequent raids, every man in the fort is aware that even a few of the local tribes acting in unison could overwhelm their perimeter and that the nearest reinforcements are too far away to offer any real assistance. The only thing preventing mutiny or mass desertion is fear of what the locals will do if they catch the troops in the open. Lone deserters usually reappear days later, tossed over the walls a piece at a time.